February 03, 2010

"Well Travelled".

Railway Cottage is the appealing name of a wonderful blog, written by Kath. I love her endearing style as she describes her creative life in a wonderful cottage with her family and her pets.

A few weeks ago, Kath hosted a give away. A give away with a riddle. She posted a series of pictures of one of her cats and asked us to guess what the initials; D.P, that made up the cats name, stood for. On the pictures, one could see a very cute, white cat with irregular black spots. The winner would receive a lovely tea towel with images of different cat breeds.

I am always ready for a challenge and even though I rarely (never) win, I thought I would give this a try. Very quickly I did realize though that this challenge was harder than I thought and going in the same directions as many others, guessing anything from dots, dotty to dark patch, I decided to get help from the most clever man I know.
My Irishman.

As I introduced him to Kath's page, he took one look at the site and within seconds proclaimed "Disruptive Pattern. As in camouflage." Yes indeed, I knew in an instant this was correct and immediately posted my winning answer in the comment section on Kath's post. I think she enjoyed the way the guessing came about as much as me, and she also later explained why the cats name was D.P.

But, this story is not over yet. Kath posted the parcel containing my prize on the 12th of last month. She only lives about 1000 km west of me and the normal delivery time should be about three days. Five days at the most. When two weeks passed and the parcel still did not arrive, we were both getting slightly worried.
As the third week was reaching its end, I considered the possibility that I misspelled my address or that the package simply got lost. How unfortunate, but these things do happen.

My hope was slowly fading, but then last Friday the package was waiting in the mailbox for me as I got home from work. As I looked upon the stamps next to the address label, it became very quickly obvious to me why the delivery extended to almost twenty days.
Next to a perfectly clear, readable and very correct address, a big postal stamp all across the label stated:

Missent To Vancouver, B.C. CANADA
Envoyee Par Erreur A Vancouver, B.C. CANADA


I was laughing out loud reading this. The parcel surely traveled half way around the world to get here. Instead of 1000 km, it traveled almost 17 000 km. "Well Travelled" as Kath put it in her mail. And ain't that the truth.

21 comments:

S. Susan Deborah said...

What a fun-filled adventure! The railways here are no different.

Blogging connects to you in different ways, you see.

Lovely one, Zuzana.

Joy always,
Susan

Lisa said...

What a story and contrary to popular belief, man can read a woman like a book! Or a blogsite:)

Observant man you have Zuzana.

And quite an adventure the parcel had, if only it could tell:)

Nice gift too. Congratulations!

Brian Miller said...

what a cool treat with a story to go with it...sometimes we tend to travl the world in search of what is right in our backyard as well, eh?

Reading Tea Leaves said...

An intriguing and fun story with a a happy ending after all. Very clever your Irishman, I bet he's excellent at cryptic crosswords!
I'm off to check out Kath's blog now!

Jeanne xx

Claus said...

You won! congratulations :-) and what a pretty prize!
So weird, nevertheless, how the package travelled so far away! What kind of mistake is that?! hahaha The towel cats, on the other hand, must have had fun ;-)

Kath said...

I'm thinking, the postman must have turned left instead of right and went the long way round!
So happy you enjoyed this little bit of fun! It has been a pleasure to meet you and get to know you, through our Blogs.

Margie said...

Hi Zuzana
You must have been so glad when the package arrived!
It took the long way around...LOL!

Once, it took over 2 months for a package to get to me that was from my sister in Canada...it was a birthday gift and we both were sure it was lost but it FINALLY arrived...better late than never!

Love the cat tea towel!

Have a great day

Margie
xo

Together We Save said...

congrats!! You won.

Helen McGinn said...

Congratulations! Now if parcels could talk.....

I won my first giveaway recently too, such a lovely thing to receive a bloggy gift.

Helen xx

Holly said...

What a fun story. Thanks for sharing! That package is more'well traveled' then I will ever be.:):)

sprinkles said...

Congrats! That's a great tea-towel!

I wonder what kind of stories that package would tell of it's adventures if it could only talk?!

I don't usually win things either. I'm usually very unlucky with things like that. There have been a few times I've entered tickets for a drawing for various things and won stuff that I didn't want or would never use.

I'm glad you finally got your package! It's always nice to get something in the mail other than bills and junk mail.

Headed over to Kath's blog now!

Nessa said...

Sort of like a message in a bottle floating around the world.

Baby's First Christmas

Calli said...

A charming story and a fun treat. Love her cats name...very clever as is your Batcat's name also.

Thanks for sharing this fun story, Zuzana!

Calli xoxo

Cat in the road said...

I was never a cat person since I had dogs all my life, but change is inevitable.
-
My first true relationship with felines was through “The Bandit” who I rescued from a war torn building.
-
This posting has given me inspiration for my next BLOG feature.
-
By the way, I think “The Irishman” deserves a lot of credit in this encounter, and that we should learn more about him.

Blogaire said...

It's 2am before i managed to reach your Blog Zuzana but it was worth the wait. I really enjoyed the tale about Kath, the cat, the riddle, the Irishman and the parcel that travelled halfway around the world.
And almost like after a bedtime story I reckon I will now get a great nights sleep!

julochka said...

it gave you a great story to tell tho'! but what are the implications that vancouver HAS such a stamp? hmm...

Zuzana said...

Susan, Ocean Girl, Brian, Jeanne, Claudia, Kath, Margie, Together We Save, Helen, Radka, Holly, sprinkles, Nessa, Calli, Scribe816, Blogaire and Julie - I am glad to hear that you enjoyed the story of the D.P cat and a parcel that travelled half around the world. Loved all your comments, as you say, if the package only could speak. ;)

Thank you all for your wonderful visit and such kind and refreshing words!:)
And thank you again dear Kath - and likewise.;)

Xoxo
Zuzana

Rosezilla (Tracie Walker) said...

Wow, that was really clever to guess that riddle! My off the cuff guess was "Dalmatian Puppy" because of the coloring. Glad your package finally arrived! (My camera is well traveled, and has been to Hawaii, Kenya, Greece and Bulgaria. It's about to go to Panama! And I've never been to any of those places. My sons have, tho!)

GYPSYWOMAN said...

what a fun filled suspense filled story - and travel journal - all rolled into one! very neat post, zuzana!!! thanks for sharing!

Zuzana said...

Rosezilla and Gypsywoman, thank you ladies for your kind comments.;) I am glad to hear that you enjoyed this post.;) xo

Lynne said...

Congratulations on that one Zuzana. Fancy it going all the way to Canada.